In the late 1990s I was working in the Silicon Valley for a Fortune-50 medical device company, responsible for a drug infusion pump manufacturing operation. I had just completed a crazy period where I had also “temporarily” (months and months…) led the advanced engineering department after that manager had transferred to a different location. I was finally settling back into one job when I was offered a position to run the company’s largest molding facility in a different state. Of course I accepted, without asking more than a couple questions.

A month later I arrived to a large operation with 60 heavy presses in a monster cleanroom, running at full capacity, 24/7/365, to make medical device components for other company operations throughout the world. And it was several months behind schedule. Downstream plants were shutting down every week, the scrutiny (“help”) from corporate was enormous, and I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping much for a while.

How do you increase capacity, quickly, when you’re already pushing every machine to the limit, around the clock?

This became my introduction to lean. We went down the traditional path of spending millions on new presses, which had a lead time of a few months. In the meantime I also did some research and came across the Association for Manufacturing Excellence where some fine gents like Doc Hall, Dan McDonnell, and Dave Hogg taught me about quick changeover. By the time the new presses arrived we had caught up with demand and were even starting to think about retiring old presses. I was hooked on lean and it changed the trajectory of my career. Gemba Academy, and our strong support of AME, is one way I try to give back to help others be similarly successful.

But that’s not the point of this story. Those of you who have worked at 24/7 facilities know that the night shifts can be a bit crazy – or even scary. This operation worked a 4/3/3/4 rotation of 12 hour shifts, which gives the benefit of long weekends but can be pretty grueling long hours. I soon learned about some “interesting” issues on the night shift. Let’s just say that sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll covers about 50% of it, with the other half being quality and productivity. Which is how you’d like critical medical device components to be made, right? Perhaps I should have asked a few more questions before taking the job?

On the positive side I had a terrific staff that genuinely wanted to improve the operation. They gave a young kid like me a lot of support, even when I started trying those crazy lean ideas that my new AME friends were telling me about. But even before we dug into quick changeover, and before I knew what a “gemba” was, I knew we had to get those issues on the night shift resolved.

I thought a big reason for the issues was lack of attention and awareness by the managers, who primarily worked the day shift. So I had my first idea: once a month we’d have our staff meeting at midnight.

You can imagine how that went over. Ka-boom.

To their credit, my entire extended staff (I requested that supporting managers from QA, finance, HR, etc also attend) really did show up for that first meeting, even though some of them had an hour commute. We went over the usual agenda items for a half hour, then we all went and walked around. We met people we had never seen before, talked to supervisors, and experienced the operation at night. What was planned to be a one hour meeting actually ended around 3am… there was just so much to see and learn.

We realized that the issues weren’t just due to a lack of awareness by the day shift managers, but were usually driven by the night shift feeling like they were being ignored and unsupported. They also experienced unique problems ranging from being unable to quickly change to a new job due to lack of materials control and QA support to having a much worse break and “lunch” experience due to the cafeteria and nearby fast food options being closed. Snowy parking lots weren’t plowed at night, without natural light the factory felt more dark and cold, and the perception was that they were outcasts and loners even though many wanted that shift for a variety of reasons – usually to support their families.

Our eyes were opened, we paid attention, and we took action. Over the next several months most of the issues were resolved and the productivity and quality of the night shift began to match the day shift. We were also able to capture and capitalize on the ideas and creativity of that shift, and since they had operated so independently they were actually better at developing and implementing solutions than the day shift.

As Toyota’s Fujio Cho famously said, “Go see, ask why, show respect.”

Before we even knew about Toyota and lean, we realized the power of going to the gemba, discarding preconceived beliefs, and listening to and supporting the people. When we soon began to try quick changeover and then other lean tools, that respect paved the way for more support, enthusiasm, and results.

Many of you know Paul Akers of Fastcap. He’s a very passionate lean practitioner, and Gemba Academy has several videos where we talk to him and tour his company.

Almost two years ago I was talking to him and he told me how he, in his 50s, was finally getting into great physical shape. He had lost fifty pounds by focusing on diet and exercise and creating accountability by telling his story on social media. Last year he published Lean Health, which goes into more detail why he made this change and how he leveraged several lean principles to help with it.

We’re almost the same age, and his story really resonated with me. After talking with him I went home and made my first green super smoothie and committed to the journey. A year later I had lost over 30 pounds and continue to be in the best shape I’ve been in since I was on the swim team in high school many decades ago. I’ve run a full marathon and do crossfit (actually, “surf fit“) pretty much every day. Ron at Gemba Academy has achieved similar results, and we’ve created a wellness program at the company that encourages and rewards healthy behaviors and choices.

Paul continued his journey by adding other training components, and last month he completed the Lake Placid Ironman. Think about it: a couple years ago he was an overweight executive. This year he swam two miles, biked 112 miles, and ran 26.2 miles – on the same day. And I thought running 26.2 miles was an achievement. He even beat my marathon time… after swimming two miles and biking over 100 miles!

Paul doesn’t just talk about lean and health, he does it. He walks, and swims and bikes and runs, the talk. As our twovideo series on Fastcap show, his company does a remarkable job with leveraging the power of small, daily improvements. Even their bathroom is kept clean thanks to kanban and 5S. Many people talk about lean or how to lose weight and get into shape, but far fewer actually do it, every day.

As leaders we need to practice what we preach. This will mean accepting and owning failure, but then learning from it. I know we often struggle with this at Gemba Academy, but we learn, and we’re better for it. One reason we’re different is because we’re practitioners who learned how to make great videos, so we’ve been in the shoes of our customers with the difficulty of of the continuous improvement journey. I also struggle daily to stick to my plan, to keep my desk organized, and to stay in shape. Once you experience the rewards it becomes easier, but the struggle remains in some form and requires ongoing reflection and recommitment.

On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a joyous energy behind what you do.
– Eckhart Tolle

Last year, some colleagues and I were discussing books we’ve found to be interesting, and my business partner suggested Edgar Schein’s Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling. I read the book and loved it.

Schein describes three types of humility and four types of inquiry, focusing on the power of here-and-now humility. This form of humility happens when we presume to be dependent on someone else because that someone has something we need (e.g., knowledge). Consider the following excerpt:

What we ask, how we ask it, where we ask it, and when we ask it all matter. But the essence of Humble Inquiry goes beyond just overt questioning. The kind of inquiry I am talking about derives from an attitude of interest and curiosity. It implies a desire to build a relationship that will lead to more open communication. It also implies that one makes oneself vulnerable and, thereby, arouses positive helping behavior in the other person.

It strikes me that, although Schein was intending to describe a relationship between two or more people, his concepts are also very appropriate for our discussions with ourselves (assuming we have them). Creating a humble, vulnerable relationship with your- self opens you up to being able to inquire, discover, reflect, and perhaps create change. Accepting yourself for who you are gives you peace. We’ll discuss reflection in more detail later on.

For the past couple years I’ve worked hard at getting into the best shape I’ve been in in decades. In fact, many of us at Gemba Academy have, and we have a wellness program that encourages and rewards positive efforts toward physical, spiritual, and emotional health. In my case I’ve been very conscious of what I eat, and I exercise every day with crossfit classes, personal strength training, running on the beach, and yoga for stretching and balance. As I enter my 50s I’ve been particularly focused on working those smaller muscles that create balance as falling is one of the top dangers for the age group I’m approaching.

A month or so ago I was getting an itch for a bit of a change. Crossfit has a lot of variety, but after over a year it was becoming routine. I needed a different angle to stay motivated. Coincidentally the owner of the small gym I had been taking classes at had been looking for a way to differentiate himself from the other small gyms, and as an avid surfer in our very popular surf town, created a specialty “Surf Fitness” series of classes. I’m a very occasional surfer, probably more of a surfer wannabe, but I still thought, “why not?” The owner warned me it was a bit more intense than the classes I had been taken, but after over a year of a lot of exercise and now being able to run several miles, how hard could it be?

Hard. After that first 6am Monday class, I hurt, bad. The next day I hurt worse. Like I haven’t hurt in over a year. Where did these hidden muscles come from? I thought I had been working everything.

The difference was due to a change in perspective. The previous classes and workouts focused on traditional, even stances to provide stability while lifting, jumping, and so forth. In the surf fitness classes the traditional exercises were modified to align with the unbalanced, offset, uneven movements found in surfing.

One example was the modification of burpees and pop ups, common (and already potentially brutal) exercises in almost any class, to be intentionally uneven and with asymmetric rotation – which would get you yelled at in a traditional class. When popping up on a surfboard to catch a wave, you push hard with your arms in a narrow width to hold on to the board rails, further back than a traditional pushup or pop up, and jump your feet between them. Your right is in front at a different angle than the left in back, while leaning forward and then back while rotating. The “goofy foot pop up” in surfer parlance, shown in the video below.

Analogous modifications were made to other traditional exercises and stretches, and muscles were moved and strained in ways they weren’t used to.

A similar modification of perspective is often necessary to create meaningful change. Just like I experienced with exercising, it can be surprising and painful, especially when you are under the delusion that you’re already pretty good. Consider a traditional organization that starts out on the lean journey, learns how to identify waste, and suddenly sees waste everywhere in an operation. The challenge appears insurmountable, and the only effective way to manage it is to start taking small steps and creating small experiments, kaizen, always moving toward an ultimate goal of perfection. Unfortunately many organizations try to minimize the pain, rather than continuing to exercise the muscles let alone changing how they are exercising the muscles, and their lean journey comes to an end.

Organizations that truly embrace the journey understand that the challenge only increases even as they improve, and that represents the inherent opportunity of lean and continuous improvement. You never truly arrive, you have never already “done lean.” You just find more and more opportunities for improvement, more changes to make, more experiments to run, and more failures to learn from. Just as people who embrace exercise learn to love the ongoing dull ache of their muscles as they add weight or different movements because they know it means they are increasing endurance, strength, flexibility, and balance. Perseverance, leadership, change, and acceptance of occasional hurt lead to improvement.

Many, if not most people go to school and college, and then, when they are finished, rarely open another book (at least one with big words in it). They may continue to grow their skills and knowledge through experience, but this is the slow boat to improvement.

Over the years, I’ve found that the primary predictor of executive leadership competency is the desire to seek, learn, analyze, distill, and share new knowledge. It doesn’t necessarily have to be within the leader’s current field or competency, nor does it have to be strictly via reading books. There are multiple path- ways to new knowledge, including online courses, magazines, and workshops.

Gaining new knowledge can also mean gaining new perspectives. As I discussed earlier, in a world of multiple sources of information, it is very easy to succumb to confirmation bias and only embrace information that fits our existing perspective. In reality, there is almost always some truth in every perspective. Challenge yourself to mindfully look at other perspectives on political, scientific, or social issues in an unbiased manner. You may not change your mind, but you will grow and your positions will be more authentic.

I try to read one fiction and one non-fiction book each month, which is sometimes difficult with my schedule. The non- fiction books, generally business-related, challenge me intellectually. The fiction, often science fiction or action thrillers, challenge my imagination. Each morning, I read The Wall Street Journal on my iPad, forwarding articles to friends and family that I find interesting. I purposely try to read articles from different political sources instead of only the ones that agree with my perspectives. I try to continually evaluate my perspectives, think about where bias is setting in and develop countermeasures to overcome the bias.

Think about your own pursuit of knowledge. What have you learned recently? What do you want or need to learn this year? How will you do it? What will you do with the new knowledge? How does it fit in with your new self-awareness? How will you encourage and provide opportunities for your team to learn?

My success, part of it certainly,
is that I have focused in on a few things.
– Bill Gates

Once you have a hoshin plan detailing what your organization’s priorities are, it’s time to face the reality of all the other projects you and your group are currently working on. This is often a “come-to-Jesus” time when organizational politics can reach a fever pitch, as project owners pitch why their projects, perhaps their raison d’être, deserve survival. It is also a great time to demonstrate the power of the hoshin plan as well as your leadership commitment to a new, defined path forward.

Compile a list of all current projects and significant activities. (This in itself will probably be an eye-opening experience.) Then, as a team, map that list against your principles, mission, why?, and hoshin plan. The hoshin plan will not list all the company’s appropriate or valuable projects, but it should contain the highest- priority objectives. All other projects must align to the principles, why?, and mission, and support and not conflict with the plan.

Project managers and teams on projects that no longer align with the organization’s future path should not be fearful. If done correctly, the projects on the hoshin plan will stretch the organization and need experienced project managers and teams to work on them. Think about how much easier your leadership role will be when all projects are identified and aligned with a hoshin plan that the organization owns and supports, not to mention the resources that are being saved or better invested.

Once again, consider doing the same for you personally. What are you working on that isn’t giving you value or contributing to your own plan? Eliminating the nonessentials in your life will give you more time and focus to create something you want even more.